Jason Schwartzman Is the American Jean-Pierre Léaud: The Actor on ‘Between the Temples,’ ‘Queer,’ and the Coppola Dynasty
Jason Schwartzman’s been a totemic figure so long it can be hard to separate player from part. Beginning as idol of teenage rebellion Max Fischer in Wes Anderson’s “Rushmore,” the actor’s spent a quarter-century inhabiting numerous types — stuffy writers, disgruntled husbands, mourning widows, drug addicts, a bumping PI on HBO’s perpetually ill-appreciated “Bored to Death” — that have doubled as progressions of professional versatility and real-life aging.
Like Jean-Pierre Léaud before him, Schwartzman is seemingly now cast for the weight his name and visage can carry. (Look no further than the brilliant, self-lampooning episode of “Tim and Eric’s Bedtime Stories.”) This sequence continues with “Between the Temples,” which finds him playing Benjamin, a cantor whose mourning for his deceased wife finds focus in sessions with Carla (Carol Kane), a fellow widow who decides now’s high time to receive the Bat Mitzvah she missed 60-or-so years prior. A brilliantly shaped scriptment from Nathan Silver and C. Mason Wells makes ideal scene partners of the two — they form one of cinema’s snuggest odd couples.
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IndieWire sat down with Schwartzman in New York, discussing “Between the Temples” amidst inquiries into and observations on his remarkable career, and began with a discussion of his uncle Francis Ford Coppola’s book “Live Cinema and Its Techniques.”
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
IndieWire: While prepping this interview I was reading this book. [Pulls out “Live Cinema and Its Techniques.”]
Jason Schwartzman: Oh, wow. Oh, wow. That’s so funny. This is a great book.
Oh, so you’ve read it.
No, I’ve read it. It’s fantastic.
I’m really enjoying it. Suitable “Megalopolis” prep.
Well, this is like… [taps book] Really it’s like theater, which he loves.
You come from maybe the great, preeminent artistic American family.
[Pause] Mmm…
Well, it’s pretty good.
Thank you.
And being in this big artists’ family, is there some expectation that everybody is watching, listening to, reading everybody else’s work?
Do you mean now, in the present tense, as I’ve gotten older, or do you mean as you’re younger?
Maybe both. Like if you, growing up, had nights where you watched “You’re a Big Boy Now” or discovered them in your own time.
[Points finger]
The latter.
That one. Yeah. [Laughs] If this means anything, I didn’t see “The Godfather” until I was 17. I don’t know why. But I guess I was into… I don’t know.
Spending 16 shooting “Rushmore” is a great excuse for not seeing “The Godfather” until you were 17.
No, no, I had seen it before I shot “Rushmore.” So I guess I saw it when I was 16 … Are you asking about sharing ideas and that type of thing? Because I like your question; I want to give you an interesting answer. That’s a good question.
It’s honestly less romantic than that. If, when “Priscilla” comes out, it’s expected you’ll go see that. There’s a burden of expectation on you.
I don’t feel a burden of expectation, but I feel that I want to see it. And I did. And I loved it… I mean, I went and saw “Longlegs” the day it came out because I’m a fan of my cousin Nicolas [Cage]’s work, and I love to see where he’s at. As I would be with any person I’m a fan of. To me — and maybe this is nuts — just in the way you can learn so much about someone from the book they have in their bag, seeing a movie of anybody, it’s kind of like that’s where they’re at.
I know it’s a collaborative process and not just the actor’s complete… you know, it’s edited, it’s worked on, it’s a collaborative thing. That’s what I love about a new album coming out and going to see a new movie by someone. Because I’m like, “What are they going to do next? Where are they at now?” Not that I don’t also speak to my family personally, but I think there’s something else that, if you’re a fan of someone, you can only really get from seeing their work. Especially something like “Priscilla”: [Sofia Coppola has] written and directed this thing. I want to know about where she’s at and what she’s thinking about. What she’s interested in. What she wants to film. Where the camera’s going.
It’s just that kind of thing. So there’s no expectation other than just the respect that I feel for her — specifically, in that example. And it’s hard to make a movie, and I want to know how it goes. It’s not like I’m getting updates. I know she’s making this movie. But I want to see what she’s been doing, but it’s not required. And my feelings certainly don’t get hurt if no one sees mine.
You weren’t calling them every week asking if they watched “Bored to Death.”
I could say almost the opposite. “Please, don’t watch anything.” I don’t like the imposition. There are so many things to see and do, and everyone’s so busy, I’m not telling people. If they find it, they find it. I’m not telling anyone about it. [Laughs]
My microscopic version is that, when I write something new, it’s just… please leave me alone.
That’s the thing: That’s just your family. It’s so embarrassing. [Laughs] But that said, I’m trying as hard as I can. Everyone’s busy. It sounds like you and I are a little similar; I have a thing where I don’t want to bug anyone. But that can, as time goes on, I realize be interpreted as “you don’t care.” The truth is: You really care. You just don’t want to also… not inconvenience…
To people my age, you’re a totemic figure. I watched “Rushmore” when I was 16 — great movie then, great movie now, but the perfect age to discover it. My friends and I saw ourselves in Max Fischer — for better and worse — while around that time “Bored to Death” premiered, and it was such a vision of what our lives as adults in Brooklyn could be.
Right. Right, right, right.
Then “Listen Up Philip” comes out when I’m a senior in college. Its irascible-intellectual character fascinates even as you try to heed the movie’s warnings. And in the last two years it’s been “Asteroid City” and “Between the Temples,” both of which I found very moving for underlining how long I’ve been watching you onscreen.
Mmm. Thank you — very much.
The comparison I make — which hopefully you don’t blanche at too much — is that you’re the American Jean-Pierre Léaud.
Oh, my. Don’t say that. But he’s my guy … Yesterday I did a thing for MUBI. I talked about “Stolen Kisses,” and I said he’s my favorite actor, and I actually have a signed poster, to me, from Jean-Pierre Léaud. It’s the greatest possession. It says, “To Jason — Jean-Pierre Léaud.” I didn’t get it; someone got it for me as a gift. It’s, like, the greatest thing. I can’t believe it. Part of me still believes they just got it signed for a generic “Jason” and they got it to me, but — nonetheless.
He’s also now cast for the living history that is. “Biography” is a big word to use, but in a quarter-century you’ve gone from precocious teen to, twice, a widower.
Nathan [Silver] was not happy about that, by the way. In the middle of while we were making [“Between the Temples”], he said, “What? You’re a widower in ‘Asteroid City.” “Yeah.” “But you’re a widower in this.” I started thinking, “Well, how many things can you… be?” If you’re gonna try to act in stuff, there’s only so many things that can happen to you.
In the span of your career, do you see yourself as having a kind of onscreen narrative?
Of my own life? Not really … Keep going with the question a little bit, because I want to get it right. I think there’s two versions of an answer. Like, am I aware of it?
If there’s a progression of a lifetime onscreen that you’ve lived, and if there’s interest in continuing to play roles that are not literally your own biography, but they comprise a certain span of human experience.
Is there something that connects them, in a way, to my human experience? Well, first of all: I don’t spend too much time thinking about [it]. I haven’t seen a lot of these movies in a long time. It’s funny, because I was talking to Carol [Kane] about this. I’ve never really been in a position where I know what I’m going to do next. It’s so hard [laughs] to get in a movie. And then for a movie to get made, as you know, so many little things have to go right. Like I say: I think, over the years, I’ve never been in a situation where I knew what I was going to do while I was doing another thing. In a way, each project has really been its own standalone experience, and I really have tried — when I work, on a technical level — to pretend this is the first movie I’ve done. I try to bring my experience, but I don’t try to get hung up on something being done differently.
I feel like a lot of people get upset on set. “Well, it wasn’t like this on my other thing.” And I just sort of think, “Right. Because this is how we do it — this one.” So I try not to hold onto any things like that, in terms of the way it’s done — the process. I just go, “This is how this one’s being done.” So: no. But I will say that I think when I look back — even just looking back on this movie — I see, to do this movie, Nathan and I have been talking about it for so long. He was like, “This character talks slowly. And he moves slowly. And he’s really inert. And he’s just moping.” I think that, looking back, I think that I stopped moving a lot before making this movie and going in the sun. Like, when I look at myself in the movie, I see an inert person. You know what I mean?
Absolutely.
And I see this lack of energy. It’s weird. Each thing is kind of like, it becomes like a biography. I can look at it and remember how I felt at the time, when I see a movie. I remember how I felt or what I was listening to.
They are interesting in that way, where they do chart my personal experience. Even if the movies aren’t biographical, they are personal in that they are who I was, in a way, behind them. So that’s been interesting to think about. Just in the way that you look back and you see a photo, and you see yourself in a t-shirt and go, “Oh, my God. I guess that guy wore that shirt.” You know what I mean?
I think, as you get older, you’re not even thinking about it, really — it just begins to happen. It’s just, like, there becomes a record of you, and that becomes your quote-unquote “life.”
I think that’s a much better way of framing my question.
But I will say one thing: This was the first movie I ever did where I knew I was going to do another movie right after. The Luca Guadagnino. And in [“Queer”], my character is very much the opposite — very, just, full of exuberance — and I think it was interesting. Because I think of them as being, even though they’re totally unrelated, as being related. Because I knew I was going to get to be so exuberant in that movie, I knew I was just going to commit to holding it back on this one. Because I’m just going to put all the eggs in the basket of this guy, here, and that was kind of cool. It was interesting. I’d never done that before.
I talked to [“Between the Temples” screenwriter] C. Mason Wells a couple weeks ago. He raved about you as a brilliant writer. But you, as a writer, tend to work collaboratively. And you only have one directing credit — an episode of “Mozart in the Jungle.” I wonder if there are ambitions to go more into either — solo as a writer, longer-length as a director.
You know, it’s funny. You’ll do something on your phone, and someone looks at it and goes, “You gotta be a director!” You’re like, “Why? Because I made this video on my phone? That’s not a movie.” I love to make things, and I love to film things and I love stories.
You’ve made a lot of music.
And I love music. If there was something that I could direct that I’m like, “I would love to do that.” But that hasn’t… I also feel like there’s a lot of people making movies, and there seems to be this thing of like, “Oh, you should make a movie.” No. You shouldn’t just “make a movie.” [Laughs] I don’t know. Why? Also, I don’t know if it comes from being, initially, a drummer, but I like being part of the… group. Like, I always played teen sports growing up. I never played tennis; I played baseball. I love the collaboration of sports. But writing, for sure. And for me, collaborating is more fun because I already know what I’m thinking. It’s so much more fun to hear what someone else is thinking based on… like, I always prefer conversations when they spin out of control, and it’s hard to spin out of control off yourself. Although, I’ve tried to do it. Actually, I had my radio show on Sirius XMU, and I used to do a lot of the episodes where I would record four of myself, and I would just talk to myself, and that was really fun, actually. Kind of cathartic.
But I would love to direct something. I have some ideas for things. But at the end of the day, it’s kind of weird. Because when I directed “Mozart in the Jungle,” I fucking loved it. But I will also say that it’s weird, as an actor, to give a note to Gael García Bernal. He would do a take, and I’m like, “…OK. So should we just go?” Who am I to be like, “Can you try…?” It’s weird because then I’m like, “That’s how I would think I would do it. I like how he would do it.” But I would love to direct something. I’d love to co-direct something! Even though you’re talking about solo, I think co-directing would be really fun to do. But what I’ve kind of learned, the more I’m watching someone: Most people are co-directing, anyway. Just the input from everybody is so essential. Everyone’s kind of co-directing — except some people.
In other words: It is such a collaborative thing, and I think as I’ve gotten older, maybe I was just held back; maybe there was a lot of fear. But I don’t know. I’d love to tell the story. But what’s the story? I don’t know. I’ve always been so envious of people that know the thing. Spoon put out its demos of the “They Want My Soul” album. I was just listening to the demos — Britt Daniel’s home demos — and I’m like, “How did he know that’s the…”
I understand this too well.
“How did he know that’s gonna be the one to work on that’s gonna become that?” It’s so hard. That’s what’s impressive about anyone who makes something: the decision to spend the time on it. That’s the baffling thing. And I’ve kind of gotten away with it, for better or for worse: kind of liking it when my decision gets made. I love when there’s a storm and you can’t leave your house. So if there could be a creative version of that [laughs], it would be nice.
“Between the Temples” opens in theaters from Sony Pictures Classics on Friday, August 23.
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